The late summer thoroughbred season normally traces its relevance directly to the Breeders' Cup in October, but the Saratoga race is being defined by the fourth meeting in the Funny Cide-Empire Maker series.
If that race is to occur between Funny Cide, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and Empire Maker, who relegated him to third in winning the Belmont, the first steps will be taken this week in New York and New Jersey.
Funny Cide is scheduled to start in the $1-million Grade I Haskell Invitational for 3-year-olds at Monmouth Park on Sunday while Empire Maker is entered in the Grade II $500,000 Jim Dandy for 3-year-olds at Saratoga the same afternoon. Both races are 11/8 miles. Neither has raced since the Belmont and both are being pointed toward the Grade I $1-million Travers Stakes for 3-year-olds on Aug. 23 at Saratoga.
Empire Maker has won two of three meetings with Funny Cide, the first in the Wood Memorial. He didn't run in the Preakness.
Juddmonte Farms president Dr. John Chandler and trainer Bobby Frankel opted for a path of lesser resistance in sending Empire Maker into a prep race on the same track where the Travers will be run. Sackatoga Stables and trainer Barclay Tagg, however, chose the more lucrative option for Funny Cide, which included a $50,000 appearance fee, and will meet tougher competition. The Haskell is likely to include Louisiana Derby and Blue Grass Stakes winner Peace Rules and Lanes End Breeders' Futurity and Hopeful Stakes winner Sky Mesa.
Empire Maker's top competition in the Jim Dandy is likely to be Puzzlement, but trainer Allen Jerkens told the Daily Racing Form he is considering the horse for the Grade I Whitney Handicap on Saturday at Saratoga.
Sackatoga Stable managing partner Jack Knowlton said an Empire Maker rematch will not be ruined if Funny Cide does not win the Haskell.
Last year, War Emblem became the first Kentucky Derby winner to capture the race.
"We'd like to win that race because it's a million-dollar race," he said. "It's a prestigious race. It's a Grade I race. Quite honestly, I don't think that the (Travers) really is going to lose luster unless he were to just run poorly.
"(But) he's had nine races and if you go back and look at them, he's never run a bad one."
Though Funny Cide, as a gelding, will continue to earn money for Sackatoga on the racetrack, Empire Maker figures to draw a ransom in stud fees and could have just a few races remaining. A win against horses of all ages in the Oct. 25 Breeders' Cup Classic likely would conclude his career, Chandler said.
"If he wins the races that he's supposed to ... there's not much point in keeping him in training the next year," Chandler said. "He's having proved his superiority to not only the 3-year-olds but the older horses in the country, so it's unlikely that he will stay in training, although it's not beyond the realm of possibility. It's unlikely that he will stay in training, but if he doesn't achieve those then there's a greater likelihood that he will stay in training to try to do it next year."
While the small town friends who constitute Sackatoga Stables clamor to reap profit from their gelding, conventional revenue streams suffice for the global entity that is Juddmonte Farms.
Sackatoga has launched a marketing blitz to profit from Funny Cide, even introducing Funny Cide Light beer this week.
"If (Empire Maker) wins the next two or three races we might think about a bobblehead," Chandler said. "Well no, I was joking about that."
